There is no American historical tradition of permanently disarming peaceable, nonviolent offenders.

None.

The Second Amendment does not say “shall not be infringed, unless someone once made a nonviolent mistake, paid their debt, rebuilt their life, and proved they are no threat to anyone.”

Yet that is exactly how the system works today.

A person can make one nonviolent mistake decades ago, complete their sentence, satisfy every court requirement, rebuild their life, raise a family, start a business, serve their community, and still be told they may never again exercise one of the most basic rights protected by the Constitution.

That is wrong.

And Texas Gun Rights is fighting to change it.

Disarm the Dangerous, Not the Peaceable

America’s historical tradition supports disarming dangerous people.

People who pose a real threat, with a proven violent tendency, or who are dangerous to others.

But there is no serious historical tradition of permanently disarming peaceable citizens merely because they committed a nonviolent offense.

In fact, all able-bodied men used to be expected to keep arms for militia service, and historical restrictions focused on danger, rebellion, violence, or threats to public safety, not blanket lifetime disarmament for every person labeled a felon.

That is the standard Texas should return to.

Not “soft on crime.”

Not “anything goes.”

Not “violent criminals get a free pass.”

Just a simple principle: disarm the dangerous, not the peaceable.

Texas Gun Rights President Chris McNutt put it plainly:

“If a person is violent or dangerous, the justice system should deal with them accordingly. But a peaceable Texan who made a nonviolent mistake, paid their debt, and proved they are no threat should not be treated like a criminal for the rest of their life. The Second Amendment is not a government privilege. It is a constitutional right. And Texas should lead the nation in restoring that right to nonviolent offenders who have earned it back.”

This Issue Is Bigger Than Most Republicans Want to Admit

This issue exposes a massive inconsistency in the Republican Party.

Donald J. Trump is a nonviolent felon after being convicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records, a case he continues to challenge and denounce as politically motivated.

He received an unconditional discharge, meaning no jail, probation, or fine, but the felony convictions remain unless overturned.

So every Republican lawmaker should have to answer one simple question:

Should Donald J. Trump permanently lose his Second Amendment rights because of a nonviolent felony conviction?

If the answer is no, then the same principle should apply to peaceable Texans who made nonviolent mistakes, paid their debt, and proved they are not dangerous.

This is not hypothetical.

Look no further than Weatherford, TX, the home of David Hart.

More than two decades ago, Hart was convicted after a nonviolent drug possession case during a devastating period in his life. He lost his father and wife, was homeless, and was struggling with addiction.

But Hart served his time, went through rehabilitation, rebuilt his life, became a successful business owner, served as a firefighter, joined the Texas State Guard, and became a respected member of the Parker County community.

Yet because of that old felony, he has been blocked from serving as a volunteer reserve police officer because he cannot legally carry a firearm.

Meanwhile, Hart has the certifications to train law enforcement on how to properly use a firearm.

The hypocrisy is never-ending.

Hart has earned support from lawmakers, local law enforcement, public officials, and community leaders to have his rights restored because they know the truth: he is not a danger to society. He is a redemption story.

Sadly, the Texas Board of Pardons & Paroles denied his pardon after a hearing in 2025.

There are thousands of Texans across the state facing similar situations.

Texas Must Lead in 2027

Texas Gun Rights is making restoration of gun rights for nonviolent felons who prove they are no risk to society a top priority in the upcoming 90th Texas Legislative Session, which begins in January 2027.

And if Republican lawmakers truly believe in redemption, constitutional rights, limited government, and the Second Amendment, this should not be a hard vote.

Of course, the gun confiscation lobby loves permanent disarmament because it helps normalize the idea that rights are privileges.

Today it is nonviolent felons.

Tomorrow it is people targeted by “Red Flag” gun confiscation laws, veterans, people who take the wrong medication, or anyone the government decides is too risky, too controversial, or too independent to be trusted with arms.

That is why this fight matters.

Once the government gets comfortable deciding which peaceable citizens are “allowed” to exercise constitutional rights, no one’s rights are safe.

The Second Amendment protects the people, not just the politically favored, or the people who can afford the best lawyers.

Help Texas Gun Rights fight to restore the rights of peaceable Texans, defeat the gun confiscation lobby, and defend the Second Amendment without compromise. Chip in today.

By Chris McNutt

Yesterday, Americans paused for Memorial Day to honor the brave men who gave their lives in defense of this nation.

Flags were flown. Prayers were offered. Families gathered. Many visited cemeteries and memorials to remember those who paid the ultimate price so that future generations could live free.

But the day after Memorial Day, we should ask ourselves a serious question:

What exactly did they die defending?

The answer is not complicated.

They died defending liberty.

And liberty cannot survive when the people are disarmed.

Long before the ink dried on the Constitution, before the Second Amendment was written, and before the United States even existed as a nation, the American people understood one truth with absolute clarity:

A disarmed people are a conquered people.

That was true in 1775, and it is still true today.

America’s fight for independence did not begin because the colonists were looking for a fight. It did not begin because they wanted violence. It did not begin because they refused every peaceful remedy.

The colonists petitioned and attempted to reason with a distant government that increasingly treated them not as free men, but as subjects to be controlled.

And when tyrants realize they are losing control, they always reach for the same tool: gun confiscation.

In 1774, as resistance to British tyranny spread throughout the colonies, King George III and his military commanders moved to disarm the American people.

On September 1, 1774, British General Thomas Gage seized the public gunpowder stores in Boston. From there, the British escalated their efforts to restrict access to firearms, ammunition, and powder.

On October 19, 1774, King George III banned the importation of firearms and ammunition into the colonies.

Then, on April 18, 1775, General Gage ordered British troops to march on Concord and seize “all artillery, ammunition, provisions, tents, small arms, and all military stores whatever.”

The mission was clear: disarm the colonists and crush resistance before it could fully rise.

But the American people were not fooled. They knew exactly what was happening. They understood that once their arms were gone, their liberty would be next.

So when Paul Revere and William Dawes rode through the night warning patriots that the British were coming, those men did not hide. They did not wait for permission. They did not beg the crown for one more compromise.

They grabbed their rifles and stood their ground.

On April 19, 1775, at Lexington and Concord, ordinary Americans — farmers, tradesmen, fathers, sons, and shopkeepers — faced the most powerful military empire on earth.

And they sent a message that still echoes around the world:

Americans will not be disarmed.

That day came at a terrible cost. The War for Independence would rage for eight long years. Thousands of Americans would die in battle or from disease. Families would be torn apart. Homes and livelihoods would be destroyed.

But because those patriots stood their ground, we inherited the blessings of liberty.

And that inheritance comes with a duty.

The men we honored yesterday did not sacrifice their lives so future generations could surrender the very freedoms they died defending.

They did not die so politicians could build gun registries.

They did not die so bureaucrats could weaponize federal agencies against law-abiding gun owners.

They did not die so the gun confiscation lobby could repackage tyranny as “public safety.”

Today, the enemies of the Second Amendment do not wear red coats. They sit in Congress. They work inside federal agencies. They hold office in state capitols. They hide behind bureaucratic rules, media talking points, and endless schemes to register, regulate, and eventually confiscate privately owned firearms.

But the goal has not changed.

The gun confiscation lobby wants the same thing King George wanted: a population too weak, too regulated, and too afraid to resist government abuse.

They want bans on commonly owned firearms.

They want backdoor gun registration.

They want “red flag” gun confiscation.

They want to make exercising your God-given rights expensive, complicated, and legally dangerous.

And they expect us to compromise our way into surrender.

That is not going to happen.

Texas Gun Rights exists because the Second Amendment is not a bargaining chip. It is not a government-issued privilege. It is not subject to the whims of politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, or courts that have forgotten the plain meaning of “shall not be infringed.”

The right to keep and bear arms belongs to the people.

Not the government.

Not the gun confiscation lobby.

Not politicians in Austin or Washington, D.C.

The people.

The day after Memorial Day is the perfect time to remember that honoring America’s fallen requires more than words. It requires resolve.

It requires us to defend the liberty they died protecting.

It requires us to teach our children that freedom is not inherited automatically. It must be guarded, defended, and restored in every generation.

And it requires us to remember that the first shots of the American Revolution were fired after the government tried to seize the people’s arms.

At Texas Gun Rights, we are committed to mobilizing Texans to defend and restore the Second Amendment — without compromise. That means exposing anti-gun politicians, fighting gun control schemes at the Capitol, holding lawmakers accountable, and ensuring grassroots gun owners have a voice that cannot be ignored.

Yesterday, we honored the fallen.

Today, we continue the fight they left in our hands.

Because the lesson of Lexington and Concord is just as urgent now as it was 250 years ago:

Free men do not surrender their arms.

And Texas gun owners never will.

Chip-in below to fuel the fight to defend and RESTORE the Second Amendment.

The U.S. House just passed H.R. 1041, the Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act, a bill that would shut down one of Washington, D.C.’s most outrageous backdoor gun ban schemes against America’s veterans.

The bill passed the House on May 21 by a vote of 216–201 and now heads to the U.S. Senate.

If the Senate passes H.R. 1041 and President Trump signs it into law, VA bureaucrats would no longer be able to strip veterans of their Second Amendment rights simply because they needed help managing their benefits.

Unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., even the rights of America’s veterans are treated like bargaining chips.

No Judge. No Conviction. No Due Process.

For years, veterans could be reported by the Department of Veterans Affairs to the federal gun ban registry simply because the VA appointed a fiduciary to help manage their benefits.

No criminal conviction.

No finding by a judge that they were dangerous.

Just a bureaucratic decision by the VA — and suddenly a veteran who served this country could be treated like a prohibited person in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

The lack of due process makes it a backdoor red flag-style gun ban, and it has impacted hundreds of thousands of veterans.

These are men and women who wore the uniform, defended our country, and sacrificed for freedoms that too many politicians in Washington now treat as optional.

And yet, instead of honoring their service, the federal government built a pipeline to dump them into the gun ban registry without a judge ever finding that they were a danger to anyone.

What H.R. 1041 Would Actually Do

H.R. 1041 would prohibit the VA Secretary from transmitting a veteran’s personally identifiable information to the Department of Justice for use in NICS solely because that veteran has an appointed fiduciary.

The only exception would be when there is an order or finding from a judge, magistrate, or other competent judicial authority that the person is a danger to themselves or others.

In plain English: needing help managing paperwork or finances is not the same thing as being dangerous.

And it certainly should not be enough to lose a fundamental constitutional right.

The bill would also require the VA to help clean up past records by notifying the Attorney General that previous NICS submissions based solely on VA fiduciary determinations no longer have a valid basis.

That means this bill is not just about preventing future abuses.

It is about correcting a long-running injustice against veterans who should never have been fed into the federal gun ban registry in the first place.

Texas Already Led the Way Against Red Flag Gun Confiscation

This fight is exactly why Texas Gun Rights has sounded the alarm on red flag gun confiscation schemes for years.

The gun confiscation lobby loves to claim these laws are about “safety.”

But strip away the poll-tested language, and the truth is obvious: red flag laws are about taking guns from people who have not been convicted of a crime.

They are about punishing people based on accusations, predictions, and bureaucratic determinations.

They are about destroying due process and pretending the Second Amendment is a privilege that can be revoked by paperwork.

That is why Texas Gun Rights fought so hard to ban red flag gun confiscation in Texas.

And we won.

In 2025, Texas passed the Anti-Red Flag Act, prohibiting Texas officials from recognizing, enforcing, or assisting with unconstitutional red flag-style gun confiscation orders.

That victory did not happen by accident.

It happened because grassroots gun owners made it politically impossible for Austin politicians to ignore them.

Now the same fight is moving through Congress.

This Fight Is Bigger Than Veterans

H.R. 1041 is not just a veterans bill, it is a due process bill.

And it is a direct challenge to the idea that government bureaucrats should be able to quietly feed Americans into the gun ban registry without a conviction, without a court finding, and without meaningful due process.

Because make no mistake: if the gun confiscation lobby can normalize disarming veterans through bureaucracy, they can use the same playbook against everyone else.

Veterans were first.

Law-abiding gun owners could be next.

The gun confiscation lobby understands this. That is why they fight so hard to preserve every federal gun ban pipeline they can.

They know that once the government gets away with stripping rights through paperwork, the only question left is which group they target next.

The Senate Must Finish the Job

The House has taken an important step by passing H.R. 1041.

Now the Senate must finish the job and send the bill to President Trump’s desk.

America’s veterans should not be treated like second-class citizens because they needed help managing benefits.

They should not be thrown into the federal gun ban registry without a judge finding they are dangerous.

And they should never lose their God-given right to keep and bear arms because of a bureaucratic benefits determination.

Texas led the way by banning red flag gun confiscation.

Now Congress should follow by passing H.R. 1041 and ending this backdoor gun ban against veterans once and for all.

Texas Gun Rights will continue fighting every attempt to turn due process into a loophole and the Second Amendment into a government permission slip.

Chip in today to Texas Gun Rights to help us keep fighting back against every backdoor gun confiscation scheme — in Austin and in Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump just did what Texas Gun Rights did a long time ago: endorse Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in the Republican campaign for U.S. Senate.

And for gun owners, the choice could not be more obvious.

For decades, John Cornyn has gone to Washington, talked like a conservative back home, and then helped the gun confiscation lobby expand the federal gun control machine when it mattered most.

Cornyn spearheaded Fix NICS, expanding the flawed federal gun ban registry.

Then he helped Joe Biden pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which Biden himself called the most significant gun control law in decades.

And throughout his career in Washington, Cornyn has refused to answer candidate surveys from Texas Gun Rights and our national affiliate, the National Association for Gun Rights, proving he has no interest in going on the record for gun owners.

Trump Finally Ends the Guessing Game

CNN reported Tuesday that President Trump endorsed Paxton in the runoff, calling him a “WINNER” and saying Cornyn “was not supportive” when times were tough. The endorsement landed just one week before Election Day, with early voting already underway.

Cornyn spent more than a year trying to win Trump’s support.

He did not get it.

Paxton ran to Cornyn’s right, stood with Trump when it mattered, and made the case that Texas Republicans need a fighter in the U.S. Senate.

Trump agreed.

That is a massive blow to the Austin and Washington establishment that has spent months trying to convince grassroots voters they have no choice but to hold their nose and stick with Cornyn.

They were wrong.

Grassroots Gun Owners Made Their Voices Heard

Trump’s endorsement also did not happen in a vacuum.

In 2025, after President Trump repeatedly said he liked both Paxton and Cornyn and wished they were not running against each other, Texas Gun Rights mobilized gun owners across the state to send a clear message:

Do not reward John Cornyn’s betrayals with an endorsement.

TXGR delivered thousands of signed letters from grassroots gun owners directly to the White House, urging him not to endorse Cornyn.

And now, with President Trump endorsing Ken Paxton, the Washington establishment’s plan to drag Cornyn across the finish line just took a massive hit.

Cornyn’s “Electability” Argument Is Falling Apart

Cornyn’s entire closing argument has been fear.

Fear that Paxton cannot win.

Fear that Republicans will lose Texas.

Fear that radical gun grabber James Talarico will walk into the U.S. Senate unless voters reward the very incumbent who helped Joe Biden pass gun control.

But new polling undercuts that argument.

A Texas Southern University poll reported by The Texan shows Cornyn and Paxton both in tight hypothetical general-election matchups against Talarico. Cornyn leads Talarico by just 45% to 44%, while Paxton and Talarico are tied at 45% to 45%. The poll surveyed 1,223 likely November voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8%.

In other words, Cornyn is not running away with the general election.

He is not some unbeatable juggernaut.

He is nearly tied with Talarico, too.

And there is a reason for that.

John Cornyn and his allies have wasted more than $100 million trying to protect his own seat and smear Ken Paxton.

That is money that could have been spent exposing James Talarico’s radical record.

It could have been used to define Talarico before Democrats turn him into their next shiny Obama-style media project.

It could have been used to warn Texas voters about Talarico’s anti-gun agenda, far-left ideology, and record from his time in the Texas House.

Instead, Cornyn burned through a fortune attacking another Republican.

Republicans Can Unite After the Runoff

The same TSU poll also shows Republican voters are not nearly as divided as the establishment wants people to believe.

Among Cornyn voters, 90% said they would vote for Paxton if Paxton becomes the nominee. Among Paxton voters, 91% said they would vote for Cornyn if Cornyn becomes the nominee.

It proves the general-election fight is winnable once Republicans stop shooting at each other and start focusing on the real threat: James Talarico and the gun confiscation agenda.

Texas Gun Rights President Chris McNutt said the path forward is clear.

“Once Republican voters choose a nominee, I am confident the grassroots can unite around defeating James Talarico and his radical agenda,” said Chris McNutt, President of Texas Gun Rights.

“John Cornyn and his allies have spent over $100 million trying to save Cornyn’s political career and smear Ken Paxton, instead of exposing Talarico’s record. Talarico’s agenda is not a secret. It is on public record from his time in the Texas House. The problem is the money has been spent protecting Cornyn, not warning voters about the radical Democrat waiting in November.”

McNutt continued:

“Gun owners do not need another senator who hides from surveys, expands NICS, and cuts deals with radical Democrats when they feel like the sky is falling. They need a fighter. That is why Texas Gun Rights PAC endorsed Ken Paxton, and that is why President Trump’s endorsement only confirms what grassroots gun owners already knew.”

The Second Amendment does not need more dealmakers.

It needs fighters.

Texas Gun Rights PAC Runoff Slate

Texas Gun Rights PAC is backing the candidates we believe are best positioned to defend gun owners, energize the grassroots, and help make the Second Amendment a defining issue heading into November.

Our pro-gun runoff slate:

• Ken Paxton for U.S. Senate
• Chip Roy for Attorney General
• Bo French for Agriculture Commissioner
• Tom Smith for Court of Criminal Appeals
• Briscoe Cain for Congressional District 9

The gun confiscation lobby is not sitting on the sidelines.

They are preparing to pour money into Texas, prop up James Talarico, and build a national narrative that Texas is finally ready to fall.

But if gun owners show up now, Texas will remain the firewall against the national gun confiscation agenda.

Help Texas Gun Rights expose weak Republicans, defeat the gun confiscation lobby, and make gun rights the defining issue in 2026. Chip in today.

By Chris McNutt, President of Texas Gun Rights

The ATF is trying to dress up a national gun owner registry as “records retention.”

Don’t fall for it.

As part of its latest rulemaking scheme, the ATF is proposing changes to how long gun dealers must keep firearm transaction records, including records the ATF collects when a gun dealer goes out of business.

That may sound like boring paperwork. It is not. This is the backbone of a federal gun owner tracking system.

Every time a law-abiding American buys a firearm from a dealer, they are forced to fill out ATF Form 4473. That form ties a citizen’s name, address, date of birth, and firearm transaction information to a government record. And when a dealer goes out of business, those records are shipped off to the ATF.

That is how the registry gets built.

Then the bureaucrats swear up and down it is not a registry while they sit on mountains of gun owner records for decades.

Texas Gun Rights is sounding the alarm because ATF’s proposed rule does not go nearly far enough.

Yes, the rule may roll back Biden’s insane “keep the records forever” policy. Good. But returning to 20 or 30 years of record retention is not victory — it is the same exact policy Barack Obama gave us.

Under this proposal, gun dealers could still be forced to hold firearm transaction records for decades. Then, after those dealers go out of business, ATF could keep those records for additional decades.

That means information on law-abiding gun owners could sit in federal hands for up to 60 years.

Sixty years.

That is generational surveillance, not “temporary recordkeeping.”

And this danger is getting worse by the day. 

A new Firearms Research Center working paper warns that modern artificial intelligence could allow the federal government to derive “registry-equivalent knowledge” from existing firearms records without ever creating a traditional registry at all. 

In other words, even if ATF claims its records are not searchable by name, artificial intelligence could make that excuse obsolete by extracting, connecting, and inferring gun ownership from records the government already holds. 

That is exactly why these records must be destroyed, not “managed.”

And I do not care what the lawyers at ATF call it. When the federal government collects and preserves records that can be used to identify who owns firearms, where they bought them, and when they bought them, that is a gun registry.

The gun confiscation lobby always tells us the same thing: “It’s just paperwork.” “It’s just background checks.” “It’s just dealer records.” “It’s just a database.” “It’s just for tracing.”

Right.

And every time gun owners believe that lie, the federal government builds another piece of the machine they will use against us later.

The National Firearms Act. The Gun Control Act. The Brady Act. NICS. Form 4473. Out-of-business records. ATF databases. Digital tracking systems.

This is not random. This is the federal gun control machine. And if that machine remains intact, the next anti-gun administration can weaponize it all over again.

That is why Texas Gun Rights is not asking ATF to make the registry a little less ugly. We want it dismantled. We want the records destroyed. We want the retention period reduced to ZERO.

Because the correct amount of time for the federal government to preserve records on law-abiding gun owners is no time at all.

ATF’s own historical position undercuts the idea that decades-old records are some magic crime-fighting tool. The ATF previously acknowledged that trace usefulness drops sharply over time, especially after 10 to 15 years, and they also admitted to Congressman Michael Cloud that it has “no ability to determine” whether crime-gun traces lead to successful prosecutions.

So let’s stop pretending this is about public safety.

It is about control.

It is about preserving the infrastructure of a national gun owner registry so the federal government has the records it needs when the gun confiscation lobby finally gets the votes to come after semi-automatic firearms, magazines, private transfers, and everything else they have been drooling over for decades.

Texas gun owners should not accept a softer version of Biden’s registry scheme. We should not accept an Obama-era status quo. We should not accept 30 years. We should not accept 20 years.

We should demand the whole system be ripped out by the roots.

The ATF opened a public comment period, which means gun owners have a chance to put their opposition into the official record.

So please, submit a comment using our pre-drafted message below, telling the ATF this registry must be destroyed, not reformed.

Copy the Following Comment to the ATF

You can paste your comment in the comment box at this link.

I strongly oppose ATF’s proposed rule on Firearm Records Retention Periods (RIN 1140–AA95).

Returning to a 20-year or 30-year retention period is not going back far enough. That simply restores a failed status quo held under the Obama Administration.

ATF should use this rulemaking to dismantle the registry infrastructure altogether, and set the retention period to ZERO, especially for FFLs that go out of business.

The federal government has no business forcing gun dealers to preserve firearm transaction records for decades, and ATF has no business maintaining out-of-business dealer records in a way that allows the agency to compile, preserve, or search records of law-abiding gun owners.

ATF Form 4473 records contain sensitive personal information about Americans who are exercising a constitutionally protected right. When those records are kept for decades and later transferred to ATF, they become the building blocks of a national gun owner registry.

That is unacceptable.

The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That right is undermined when the federal government maintains systems that can be used to track gun owners, monitor lawful firearm purchases, or preserve firearm transaction records for future enforcement campaigns.

Texas Gun Rights will keep me informed of your actions.

You can paste your comment in the comment box at this link.

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Destroy the records. End the registry. Protect the Second Amendment.

The ATF is hoping gun owners are asleep. They are hoping this sounds too technical. They are hoping you ignore it.

Don’t.

Submit your comment above. Tell ATF to destroy the registry. And chip-in below to help Texas Gun Rights continue hammering the federal gun control machine until it is dismantled piece by piece.